Report from the President

Jesuit Conference Meeting held in Phnom Penh 25-28 January 2010

Major Superiors from the seven provinces and six regions and missions of Asia Pacific met for their 6 monthly Jesuit Conference meeting late January in Prieb So, Jesuit Mission Cambodia’s brand new community and apostolic centre in Phnom Penh. Fr Gabriel Je (KOR), mission superior, and his team had worked hard so that Prieb So, meaning White Dove, would be ready for the guests. The house is well built, spacious, airy and friendly. It promises peace, welcome and service for years to come.

One day of the meeting was given over to reflection and prayer on the Year of the Priest and on planning, helped by facilitators Ms Christina Kheng from Singapore and Fr Arthur Leger (MIC) from East Asian Pastoral Institute. The group made a visit for mass and dinner to Banteay Prieb, the technical school for the disabled, where a collaborative JRS team began this mission twenty years ago, and to Jesuit Service Cambodia for a lunch.

Over the three remaining days the superiors worked through a packed agenda. They agreed that the new Conference Statutes, rewritten in the light of GC35’s Decree 5 on Governance, should be submitted for Fr General’s approval, along with the request to a name change to ‘Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific’.

Thanks to a comprehensive report from Formation Delegate Fr Matthias Chae (KOR), already six months on the job, serious attention was given to Jesuit formation. The Delegate was asked to give particular attention to support formation planning for Myanmar and East Timor. With working groups now developing theological formation, he was asked to turn his attention also to early, that is post-novitiate formation, and to formation for leadership, governance and Ignatian spirituality. A proposal for a ‘Rodriguez Month’ for brothers, analogous to the pre-ordination ‘Arrupe Month,’ will be actively explored. 

The major superiors agreed to support the International Theology Program, an integral feature of Loyola School of Theology (LST) in Manila, with both personnel and with finance. LST has been a project of the (currently financially strapped) Philippine Province, serving the Philippine Church. Increasingly it is attracting international students, including Jesuits from Asia Pacific and beyond.

All regions and some provinces are struggling to build their formation funds. The Conference is working both to secure funding for recurring formation expenses of the regions, including Arrupe International Residence, and to build formation funds for the long term future of Myanmar, East Timor and Cambodia. The Conference was also made aware of the provinces currently experiencing acute shortages.

Given the dominance of Africa and Asia in the changing demographic patterns of Church and our Society, Fr General asks us to interact more explicitly with people of those continents. The superiors decided to invite participants from the African and South Asian Conferences to the Scholastics and Brothers Workshop next Christmas in Indonesia. With Islam as a key theme of that gathering, it was decided also to invite European representatives.

A workshop on ‘Creative Communications’ scheduled for May in Manila was approved, as was a workshop of personnel from Ignatian Spirituality Centres and Retreat Houses for August in Sydney. Another meeting of the Brothers will be scheduled for 2011, building on the much appreciated meeting in July 2009 in Indonesia. A forum for Buddhist scholars is scheduled for late April this year, alongside the East Asian Theology Program in Chiang Mai. Development officers will gather for training in Manila in February. Those regions or provinces with live-in candidacy programs were encouraged to meet and to develop guidelines for best practice. The workshop for around 60 key people from our secondary schools will take place in Fukuoka early in August.

The request of the social ministries for a full time coordinator is being taken seriously. In the meantime greater support is being offered to the current coordinator, including assistance in building networks around migration and the environment, and a “mapping” of activities in the social field. The report of the mapping study will be presented in the July meeting of the superiors to be held in Seoul, and in the gathering of the social ministries in Yogyakarta (16-20 August).

Spurred by Decree 3 of GC35 and repeated appeals of the Popes, the Conference agreed to make ‘reconciliation with creation’ a key element of the Jesuit mission in Asia Pacific. Superiors undertook to work with individuals and institutions within their own provinces and regions to develop ‘concrete programs and initiatives’ that promote reconciliation with creation. The social ministries are asked to resource this environment agenda in cooperation with others.

Commitment to the East Asian Pastoral Institute was expressed in a resolve to recruit a core Jesuit team in support of the director. Appropriate ways to support pastoral workers was also considered, following helpful notes from the consultation with a small group of pastors.

By: Fr Mark Raper, 17 February 2010

View more pictures here.